APPROVAL OF
JOURNAL

The
Faculty Senate Journal for the regular session of February 10, 2003 was
approved.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

President
Boren accepted the resolution on tuition and fees (see 2/03 Senate Journal)
"with appreciation to the Senate for considering this important
issue."Prof. Cline thanked the
senators who voted.The vote, which was
done electronically, was 46 in favor, one abstention, and 5 who did not
vote.Prof. Cline said the resolution
was sent to the state house of representatives prior to its vote on the tuition
bill.The bill was passed by the house
and should be voted on by the senate this week, barring complications with the
lottery bill.

Prof.
Chandra Rai (Petroleum & Geological Engineering) was elected by the College
of Engineering to complete the 2001-04 term of Prof. Sudarshan Dhall (Computer
Science) on the Faculty Senate.

SENATE CHAIR'S
REPORT, by Prof. Ed Cline

Bruce
Hinson, chair of the Faculty Senate in 1993-94 and retired professor of
Journalism and Mass Communication, passed away on March 2.The senate observed a moment of silence.

Information
Technology is working on the e-mail spam problem, but it is not clear whether
the problem is completely solvable.

One
of Prof. Cline’s goals was to create a fund for faculty development,
particularly for areas with limited funding resources outside the
university.The money could be used to
further research or teaching.President
Boren obtained $15,000 in new money for this fund.Prof. Cline hopes the Faculty Senate will work toward getting the
fund endowed and making the grants more widely available.It is a small but positive start in a
financially difficult year.

The
senate executive committee has transmitted concerns about health care to Human
Resources (HR), which is working to address all of the issues.Prof. Hart asked for some idea of the
schedule and whether an updated health plan would be presented to the
senate.Prof. Cline said the HR people
would come back with an updated plan but he was not sure when.He said the senate executive committee had
asked HR to use the next 18 months to research other programs so we would have
other options to consider.Prof. Hart
said he thought that was what we just paid the consultant to do.Provost Mergler said the university paid
$150,000 to the consultants, and they gave us financial data comparing our
benefits to those of other schools.Prof. Carnevale, chair of the Employment Benefits Committee, said the
EBC and HR recommended that we go to the state health plan.The EBC also recommended that the
administration put out an RFP to see if there were better plans than the state
plan, and the administration agreed to do that.The EBC had a discussion about redistributing some of the
employee contribution to persons with family coverage to offset some of the
extra expense, but the reaction has been negative.The state plan will start July 1.Enrollment will be in April, and there will be another enrollment
for January.Prof. Milton asked for
clarification as to how long we would be committed to the state plan.Prof. Carnevale said it would be for 1.5
years.Prof. Hart said he thought one
of the options being examined was to increase employee contributions in order
to stay with our current self-insured plan.Prof. Carnevale said the administration seemed to have negative feelings
about our current model because of the deficits.However, it would seem reasonable for the consultant to look at
the current plan along with other options, if there is a way for the university
to avoid surprising deficits.Prof.
Hart said employees were not given choices or included in the decision.Benefits will be reduced without any
consideration of last month's discussion.He said he understood the reasons why the university wanted to get out
from self-insurance, but objected to the way this had been handled.Some issues have not been addressed, such as
coverage when employees are traveling.Prof. Cline said the cost would have increased by $90 per month per
person to stay with the current plan.The senate executive committee asked the administration to start now to
look at other options and to present something earlier next time.

The
faculty awards ceremony is scheduled for Thursday, April 10, at 3:30 p.m. in
the Bell courtroom.

PROPOSED INTERIM
COMPUTER POLICIES -- SECURITY, ACCEPTABLE USE

The
proposed interim computer policies on security and acceptable use (attached) were
developed by the Information Technology Council, in consultation with Legal
Counsel, and were discussed at the January Senate meeting.Prof. Fincke asked for clarification of the
fifth point under examples of unacceptable use: use University systems for
commercial or partisan political purposes.She said faculty who teach science could stray into quasi-political
situations involving such things as textbook evolution disclaimers.Prof. Deborah Trytten, Information
Technology Council chair, said the statement was required by Legal Counsel so
that university systems would not be used for partisan politics, such as
endorsing a particular candidate.She
said she assumed Legal Counsel would not use the policy to prosecute unpopular
political opinion.The interim policies
were approved on a voice vote.

FACULTY
COMPENSATION COMMITTEE REPORT -- BUDGET CUTS

Following
discussion at the January Senate meeting, the Faculty Compensation Committee
(FCC) made some revisions in its report concerning budget cuts (attached).Prof. Striz, chair of the FCC, said the revised
document reflected the concerns people had about furloughs, by saying furloughs
would be a last resort.He said he was
aware that people still had concerns about the document and thought it would
help to see the recommendations in context.Citing specific budget problems at other universities, Prof. Striz said
the FCC was not advocating anything, but rather was proposing ways to address
budget problems, particularly if the tuition bill did not pass.

Prof.
Magid pointed out that the paragraph about furloughs had language about
prorating 9-month faculty.He suggested
that the paragraph about retirement contributions should have similar language
to make sure there was no confusion.He
proposed that the sentence should read, "faculty could agree to a prorated
one-month delay."He commented
that one month for a 9-month faculty member is 1/3 more than for a 12-month
employee.Prof. Cline said that had
already been addressed, and that it would be 1/12 for everyone.Prof. Magid said he still would like to say
that in the document.Prof. Striz
agreed to the addition.

Prof.
London said his colleagues thought the section on leaves and sabbaticals was
the wrong statement for the Faculty Senate to make.A few people would be singled out to take a big hit.Prof. Striz suggested that “voluntary” be
added.Prof. London moved to withdraw
the paragraph.Prof. Hart said his
colleagues agreed.Very few of them
could live an entire year on half pay.He said if the paragraph was not deleted, it should at least be changed
to read, “one-year half-pay sabbaticals should be explored."Prof. Wieder noted that this option was not
likely to generate much funding for the university in any case.Prof. London's motion was approved on a
voice vote.

Prof.
Wieder said the faculty in his department were concerned that the document
assumed we could reduce the faculty by a substantial amount and still have the
same size classes.The state should not
expect that we are going to educate the same number of students.He suggested that a sentence should be added
after the paragraph starting with "For additional budget shortfalls,"
that would read something like, “At some point, we should not expect that as
many students could be accommodated at the university.”With the furloughs of 1983, students were in
the hallways trying to get into classes.Provost Mergler said that idea was usually phrased as “reduction in
credit hour production and further delays to the students having timely
completion.”Prof. Wieder moved to add a
statement along those lines and include "is an expected outcome of a
further reduction of resources."Prof. Hart asked whether that would contradict an earlier statement in
the document that talked about teaching more courses.Prof. Striz said he did not think it was contradictory.Prof. Wieder said the language suggested
that faculty would accommodate a reduction in force.Prof. Striz said a previous paragraph addressed what would happen
if we had layoffs.Prof. Gottesman said
she thought it was worth mentioning a second time.Prof. Wieder’s motion was approved on a voice vote.The document as amended (attached) was approved
on a voice vote, with one opposed.

ADJOURNMENT

The
meeting adjourned at 4:10 p.m.The next
regular session of the Faculty Senate will be held at 3:30 p.m. on Monday,
April 14, 2003, in Jacobson Faculty Hall 102.